"And they'll be on our trail the moment they give him the news."

"All right, we'll be ready for them. How much ammunition have you?

"Three cartridges," I replied.

"And I have four. We must make those seven--look out! There's another beggar coming!"

We dropped quickly out of sight and peered through the leaves. Holman was right. Some one else was coming along the path, but the newcomer was exercising much more prudence than the three dancers. Judging by the little intervals of silence that followed the slight noises made by the breaking of twigs, he was investigating each yard of the way.

A woolly head at last appeared through the network, and our nerves relaxed at the big brown eyes that rolled fearfully. The timorous stranger was Kaipi!

The Fijian was shaking with fear when we dragged him into the bushes. In halting words he told the story of his experiences of the night, and Holman and I listened. Kaipi had waited upon the ledge till a few hours before the dawn, and then he had made for the camp. With much better luck than we had struck, he reached there before daylight, but fearful of the happenings which would follow in the wake of the devil dance, he had taken up a post of observation in a neighbouring tree and awaited events.

Leith, according to the Fijian, had arrived at dawn, accompanied by Soma and the one-eyed white man, and the big brute had immediately interviewed the Professor. Kaipi's actions, as he mimicked the elderly scientist, convinced us that the interview was not pleasant to the archaeologist, and it was evident that it was at that moment Leith had declared himself as Barbara Herndon stated in her note.

"He kick up plentee big row," explained Kaipi. "He kick porter men an'

make d.a.m.n big noise outside missee tent. They come out speakee him, he slap big missee in face, drive 'em off."

Holman was crashing through the bushes before Kaipi had finished his recital, and I followed him, with the excited Fijian bringing up the rear. Leith was rushing the Professor and his daughters toward the black hills and we had to do something immediately.

For over an hour we stumbled along the track, making no effort to keep under cover in case Leith should have prepared an ambush. It was useless to argue with Holman, and my own feelings were such that I preferred to take the risks of the route which Soma's axe had cut, to the delays which the task of forcing our own pa.s.sage through the labyrinth would bring upon us. Prudence was thrust into the background by the intense hate we entertained for the devil who had entrapped us.

It was near midday when our pursuit met with an interruption. A revolver cracked in a clump of wild ginger directly in front, and we took cover immediately. The bullet had whizzed close to Holman's head, and as we lay panting in the ribbon-gra.s.s we congratulated ourselves on the fact that we had been met with a single shot instead of a volley. We had taken a big chance and had come off lucky. It was impossible for Leith's party to be very far ahead, and as we watched the ginger clump we wondered how we could circ.u.mvent the sharpshooter.

After about five minutes of absolute quiet Kaipi turned his head and pointed to the rear, and Holman and I listened intently. The Fijian's sharper ears had detected slight sounds behind us, and as we strained the silence we came to the conclusion that the enemy had stealthily worked their way around us, and were now creeping like snakes through the maze with the hope that they would take us unawares.

We started to worm our way to the right, and our hatred of the infernal island, where we were reduced to the condition of burrowing moles, increased. Our eyes were practically useless. We had to depend upon hearing alone, and when a white man pits his ears against those of a native he finds that he has been suffering from partial deafness without being aware of the fact. A dozen times we shifted ground on a signal from Kaipi, whose head was continually to the earth, and that game of hide and seek drove us frantic. Leith was hurrying toward the hills while we were crawling backward and forward through the undergrowth to escape a few natives who pursued their tactics with a persistency that was maddening. The fact that the pursuers had the advantage put a raw edge upon our tempers, and after an hour spent upon hands and knees Holman resolutely refused to shift his ground in response to Kaipi's signals. I was just as tired of the wormlike att.i.tude that we were compelled to adopt, and I waited beside Holman while the Fijian slipped away through the creepers after warning us by many eloquent signals that one of the search party was creeping toward us.

Holman had a "let-'em-all-come" expression upon his face that would have been amusing at any other time, and kneeling with our backs to each other we endeavoured to peer through the leaf.a.ge to get a glimpse of the foe.

We remained like that for about ten minutes; then our attention was attracted to a point about eighteen inches to the right. The dry leaves were pushed quietly aside, but instead of a head appearing, as we expected, a bare brown leg was thrust through the creepers and remained stationary.

The leg fascinated us. Kaipi had moved in the opposite direction, and we were certain that the limb belonged to one of our enemies. The naked savage was worming his way upon his stomach, and the position immediately brought to our minds a picture of the scene in the long gallery. When it came to a game of this sort we would be hopelessly outcla.s.sed by a batch that, through a.s.siduous training, slipped along with the ease of serpents.

Holman held his revolver in readiness and watched the leg. It was difficult to judge the position of the native's body, and the scarcity of ammunition made us hesitate before firing a shot. The leg was pushed farther out of the leafy tangle, and as it came toward him a change pa.s.sed over Holman's face. He handed his revolver to me, crouched on his thighs and sprang!

There was something primitive about the action, something which caused my heart to throb as I watched him take the pantherlike spring. On the previous evening the youngster had expressed a desire to throttle Leith, and the same desire had gripped him when he watched the leg come through the vines. The devilishness of the batch made shooting a tame way of obtaining revenge, and I possessed the same itchiness of the fingers which had prompted Holman to take the wild leap. There was a joy in throttling such a brute, and I delighted in the grit of the boy.

The affair was dramatic in its swift and silent ending. The native, taken entirely unawares, had no chance against the angry antagonist who had landed upon his back. A faint gurgle proved to me that Holman's fingers had found the neck of the other, and in an incredible short time the struggle was over.

We parted the bushes and examined the body. It was one of the three nude natives that had rushed by us on the trail a few hours before, and he clasped in his right hand a long knife of New Zealand greenstone that had been inlaid with gold in an intricate design. We had never seen such a weapon. The crude knives that I had seen throughout the islands were not to be compared to the wonderfully polished blade that had been intended to free either Holman or myself from all earthly cares, while the metalwork showed a craftmanship that made one wonder how many centuries had elapsed since the Polynesian artist who had fashioned the weapon had been laid in the Cavern of Skulls. The sinnet work and the parquetry of split bamboo, which comprise the highest handicraft of the present-day islander, could hardly be cla.s.sed with the exceedingly beautiful work upon the blade.

Holman turned up the end of the haft, pointed to a delicate design of a centipede, and then looked down at the back of the savage upon the ground. The similarity of the two designs was immediately apparent, but while the one on the greenstone had been executed by an artist, the figure upon the back of the dancer was a crude example of scar-tattooing that required some imagination to puzzle out what object it was supposed to represent. As we glanced at each other the significance of the serpentlike dance, the marks upon the bodies of the dancers and on the knife and stone table, was plainly evident. The island was sacred to the centipede, and in some way Leith had made himself a chief wizard amongst the few savages who still performed the rites which had once made the Isle of Tears a place of particular importance to the surrounding groups.

Holman took the long greenstone knife, and we crept quietly away in the direction taken by Kaipi. We had one enemy less upon the island. Not counting the carriers, we reckoned that the active opposition comprised Leith, Soma, the one-eyed white man, and either two or three of the "tivo" dancers, and these made a formidable batch. The dancers were huge natives, possessing all the characteristics of the Tongans, while Leith, Soma, and the one-eyed white man possessed more than ordinary strength.

"We must try to find the path," whispered Holman. "This delay will give Leith a chance to get to the hills."

But the finding of the path was no easy matter. So that we would be well out of the sphere of the companions of the man who carried the greenstone blade, we worked our way for about one hundred yards through the leafy maze before attempting to search for it, and that search proved a long and tiresome one. It is impossible to describe the network of wanton vegetation through which we struggled during the hot afternoon. Every kind of shrub and tree was woven into an unG.o.dly tangle by the crawling, leaping vines that shut out the sky and made it impossible to see a person standing only a few feet away.

We stayed our appet.i.tes with wild guavas and yams, and moved slowly forward in the direction that we surmised that Leith was moving in. Our inability to find the path left us the only alternative of pushing on toward the hills in the hope that we would intercept the party before it reached the caverns which made the basalt cliffs a secure hiding place.

Once the arch villain reached the caves it would be a difficult matter to locate him, and we d.a.m.ned the crazy brain of the Professor as we thought of the lonely position of the Isle of Tears. If the captain of _The Waif_ was in league with Leith it would be absolutely impossible to obtain help to rescue the girls and their father, and we would be marooned upon the island for an indefinite period.

It was within a few minutes of sunset when our despondency was suddenly swept away. The silence of the jungle was disturbed by a shrill voice that protested loudly against something which the owner was called upon to do, and our hearts punched our ribs with mighty blows as we crawled forward. The voice belonged to Professor Clinton Herndon of California.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER XVI

THE STONE TABLE

Our feelings can hardly be described as we crept closer to the spot from which the scientist's angry protest had gone up through the silence like a thin wire. The loneliness of that day had been appalling. I know that Edith Herndon's quiet face was continually before my mental vision, while Holman's actions convinced me that he was suffering acutely. If we were certain that Leith intended to do no wrong to the party, the fact that he was within speaking distance of the two girls was particularly distressing after the knowledge we had gained in the night. With extreme caution we wormed our way forward, the Professor's piping voice acting as a verbal signpost in helping us to locate the spot where he was engaged in holding the argument. We were close enough to hear his words, and our nerves were on the highest tension as he shrieked a defiance against some person near. We had only one thought as to who that person could be. The Professor was piling charges of treachery upon the head of a listener, and there was only one head on the Isle of Tears that contained enough villainy to make the charges possible!

"I will not sign the papers!" cried the scientist. "I want my liberty, sir! You are a scoundrel! Where are my daughters?"

Holman, creeping a few inches in front, had drawn his revolver. The blood pounded madly; through my brain. We were within a few yards of Leith, and even as we moved snakily forward, the heavy ba.s.s voice of the scoundrel came to our ears.

"You stupid old fool!" he growled. "You can demand all day and all night if it does you any good. Do you know who I am?"

"I know you are a ruffian!" snapped the Professor. "I know you are a rogue who has no respect for his word and honour. I know you are a coward who insults women!"

"Go on," mocked Leith.

"I've been a fool!" cried the old man. "I was blinded to everything through my love of science. Now I know that you lied. I know you brought me here to rob me and insult my daughters."

The sun had set, and the twilight made it difficult for us to locate the two men. But we were close. When Leith spoke again, his voice sounded so near that I started involuntarily, while Holman, resting upon one hand, parted the branches with the barrel of the revolver which he gripped in the other.

"But you will admit when all is over that I have shown you some wonderful things," sneered Leith.

The Professor was silent a moment, as if endeavouring to fathom the meaning of the words, and we moved a few inches closer in the little interval.

"How?" asked the scientist.

Holman's hand that gripped the revolver remained motionless. Through a rift in the leafy curtain I caught a glimpse of a bulk that was within a yard of our hiding place, and I knew that the youngster was waiting for the brute to speak to make certain that he was covering the right man.

The silence was nerve-destroying.

"Why," said Leith, speaking slowly and distinctly, "you are in the hands of the Wizards of the Centipede. I am their head, and if you are not extremely lucky you will make a sacrifice to--"

Something fell upon my head with tremendous force at that moment, but as the blow descended Holman fired, and even as I fought to escape the grip of the strong fingers that twined themselves around my neck, I realized with a great wave of happiness that the bulk in front of me had pitched forward when the shot had shattered the silence.

In a wild bedlam of oaths and shouts we fought and struggled. The "tivo"

dancers had followed upon our track through the long afternoon, and the time that we had lost in locating Leith had given them an opportunity to come up with us. In the gloom we threshed backward and forward, but our efforts to escape were vain. The one-eyed white man appeared mysteriously out of the shadows to help the huge natives, and in three minutes Holman and I were tied hand and foot and stretched out near the unfortunate Professor, who, with bound limbs, was sitting up in the centre of the gra.s.sy clearing where Leith and he had been exchanging personalities. There were no signs of the girls, and I wondered, as my brain recovered from the effects of the blow, what had happened to them.

Holman's voice put a question that roused me from my half stupor.

"Did I kill him?" cried the young fellow. "Tell me!"